APRIL 2022 - AudioFile
Delia Ephron uses a sometimes-reticent tone in her delivery of the positives and negatives of growing older. She finds the funny in everyday life and love. Grief, sorrow, and commentary on life in America are sprinkled throughout this new work. Ephron allows both frustration and anger into her voice as she grieves the deaths of her beloved sister, Nora, and her husband, Jerry. Then, just when she is back on her feet emotionally, she faces a life-threatening illness of her own. Ultimately, she finds a way to transmit her hope and eventual joy to the listener. She allows affection, a rising tempo, and even fun into her voice as a new love arrives when she is in her 70s. This memoirist lets listeners know that she will persevere through all life's difficulties. R.O. 2023 Audies Finalist © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
From the Publisher
[This] is less the story of a woman losing a husband than it is that of a woman falling in love again at age 72…Ephron’s story is inspiring for all of us out there whose romantic lives or longings will never be the stuff of a big-box-office romantic comedy…If there’s such a thing as a feel-good memoir, this is it.”—Joyce Maynard, The New York Times Book Review
"Delia Ephron is the voice of our times and a master craftsman of the written word. If you are looking for a book that tells you the truth about love, marriage, friendship, family, creativity, loss, redemption and your internet provider, look no further. Ephron soars on the page, and takes us with her. A resplendent memoir, Delia style."—Adriana Trigiani, bestselling author of The Good Left Undone
“The funny, poignant and sometimes magical memoir is an open-eyed look at later life and what Ephron calls the left turns that can be perilous or wonderous.”—Anita Snow, The Associated Press
"Delia Ephron’s stunning Left on Tenth will make you believe in love again, and also in miracles. And it’s so very, very funny."—Sarah Dunn, author of The Arrangements
“Delia masterfully and hilariously reminds us that there is always more life to be found just around the corner. A powerful, beautiful, life affirming testament to hope and meaning in the darkest hour. Somehow it felt like the answers to all of the big questions were immediately lurking in the text, and like any decent existentialist and searcher, I couldn’t put it down and finished it in one sitting.” —Natasha Lyonne, writer, director, actor
“Oh, huge-hearted Delia Ephron! I loved this book. It’s a memoir about grief and illness, but it’s also basically a love letter to her people, and it’s a gorgeous one. Because here is someone who chooses joy over and over again—who chooses friendship and love, like a fountain of gratitude that turns despair into a glittery, rainbow-scattering spray of light. Her lucky friends! Forgive yourself for wishing you were one of them.”—Catherine Newman, author of Catastrophic Happiness: Finding Joy in Childhood's Messy Years
“Ephron’s memoir is a heart-wrenching tale of second chances at life and love.”—TIME Magazine
“A fun and rewarding read.” —Boston.com
"[A] straight-out-of-a-movie memoir.”—Parade
“Radiant…readers will be swept away by this triumphant story.”—Publishers Weekly
“Only someone with a heart of stone could resist the charms of Delia Ephron's tender, moving story of late-life love and illness. Ephron writes with singular transparency of her treatment for leukemia—the same disease that killed her sister seven years earlier—and the unbearable terror and pain she suffered. But Ephron is at heart a writer naturally drawn to light who finds joy and humor even in life's darkest corners. This wonderful memoir is an ode to the enduring power of love and friendship.” —Joanna Rakoff, bestselling author of My Salinger Year
"She knows how to grip a reader with plot twists and punchy prose.”—The Forward
Library Journal - Audio
06/01/2022
Ephron, the younger sister of Nora Ephron and her writing and producing partner on films including You've Got Mail and Sleepless in Seattle, reads her emotional roller-coaster of a memoir with a relaxed, confidential tone. Ephron begins her tale in 2015 when her husband of 32 years is entering hospice care after a decade-long battle with prostate cancer. After he dies, she is left alone in their Greenwich Village apartment. Ephron was still mourning the loss of her force-of-nature sister Nora, who had died two years earlier after a secret six-year battle with leukemia. A year after her husband's death, Ephron meets a widowed doctor who had briefly dated her when she was 18. Just when her life starts resembling a rom-com written by her and her sister, Ephron is diagnosed with the same cancer that felled her sister. Her only option is a bone marrow transplant that turns into a horrifying months-long hospitalization that leaves her depressed, in constant pain, and suicidal. VERDICT Ephron gives a brave, emotional, and unforgettable reading of her precise and moving memoir of death, illness, and survival.—Kevin Howell
APRIL 2022 - AudioFile
Delia Ephron uses a sometimes-reticent tone in her delivery of the positives and negatives of growing older. She finds the funny in everyday life and love. Grief, sorrow, and commentary on life in America are sprinkled throughout this new work. Ephron allows both frustration and anger into her voice as she grieves the deaths of her beloved sister, Nora, and her husband, Jerry. Then, just when she is back on her feet emotionally, she faces a life-threatening illness of her own. Ultimately, she finds a way to transmit her hope and eventual joy to the listener. She allows affection, a rising tempo, and even fun into her voice as a new love arrives when she is in her 70s. This memoirist lets listeners know that she will persevere through all life's difficulties. R.O. 2023 Audies Finalist © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
